Bucksnort

Hi Bletchley,

Thanks for all this info...very interesting. From what I've read, Germany also had problems with premature wear of their rotaries later in the war due to having to use synthetic oil rather than the preferred castor oil for lubrication. So the Dr1 often had less than 110 ponies pulling it around the sky also.

The 130hp Clerget was license built in the UK.  It was the license that made them expensive.  The license built engines were notorious by the Fall of 1917 in Camel squadrons.  French made Clergets were much better.

Gav,

So you're thinking the approx 150 Sopwith Triplanes built had a French made Clerget which would have been better...which makes sense.  Then the numbers in my post of the RFC test might be valid.  If I put the Triplane at a top speed of 117 sea level then it would be faster than the early Alb D.III's but on parity with the OAW and slower than the Alb D.V (I sped up the OAW D.III to 117 at sea level to represent the later/faster D.III's as it is the last D.III that appears in the game and I found ratings of 117-118 mph at sea level on the later D.III's with the new spinner design and larger engines).  I just read another article last night about the Triplane being withdrawn in late 1917 due to being outclassed in performance and firepower, so running it at 117 mph sea level might be a good fit then.  That way it has its heyday in the first half of 1917 and not in the second half of 1917.  Where have you got it's speed?

Thanks!

Pol, let me add that I think it is wonderful that we are able to modify the speeds in WOFF.  It is a definite plus!  It allows players to set up circumstances they may have read about.  Since no one knows for sure, if a player wants a fast Triplane they've got it, or if they are like me and want to slow it down, they can.  I'm having some really fun dogfights in the Albatros now being able to Boom and Zoom the Entente rotaries (if I'm smart about it).  It also highlights the altitude advantage...if some Camels come in above me my goose is often cooked as they are all over me.  But if I'm on parity or above them then I can dictate the fight as long as I don't slow down and try to turn with them too much.  I have a very slight speed advantage in the Albatros the way I have things set up, so if I make a mistake the advantage is lost.

So the flexibility to customize is great :o) 

Hi Guys,

There is no right or wrong answer but here is a document that I used to help me decide on what speed I wanted to set my Sopwith Triplane at for sea level

http://combatace.com/gallery/image/27658-sopwith-triplane-130-clerget-rfc-test/

This RFC test has the Triplane's top speed at 117 mph at sea level for the 130 hp Clerget.  There are also two RFC documents on the Internet for the 110 hp Clerget tested by the RFC at a top speed of 115 and 116 mph at sea level (two different tests and planes).  That is why Sopwith stopped making Triplanes and moved to the biplane design with the Camel - drag.  Increasing the horsepower on the Triplane from 110 hp to 130 hp only got them 1 or 2 miles per hour better and they understood why. 

There is another RFC document available on the Internet that was released after the war that shows concern over the rapid deterioration of the 130 hp Clerget engine in Sopwith Camels.  According to the document after only 15 hours of operating time the Sopwith Camel's top speed at sea level typically deterioted to about 100 mph (this information was only released when the document was declassified).  That is over 1 mph for each hour of operation.  That would mean the Camel and the Triplane were chugging around after just 8 or 10 hours of operation at 10 mph slower than when they were factory fresh and might be why you see comments like this:

Edgar McCloughry a Flight Commander and 23 victory ace with 4 Sqn Australian Flying Corps wrote of the Camels lack of speed:

    "I at once turned but they did not wait, one of the horrible characteristics of a camel being, as I will describe later, that it is un-able to catch any other machine with the exception of the Fokker triplane on the level."

For 40 years I've been reading about the slow but highly maneuverable Sopwith Triplane and Camel, so for me it made sense to reduce their speed :o)

Are you basing your data on top speed of rotary engines on the listed top speed on the aircraft information page, or on actual game performance? In OFF, I found that the listed top speed was always about 4 mph faster than the top speed as measured in the game (using the F5 key speedometer). Here are my observations on the in-game top speed (sea level) for selected rotary engine planes in OFF:

 

Camel 113.5 mph

DR1 112.5

N11 96.25

N16 91.5

N17 106.0

N24 110.75

Pup 107.0

Tripe 122.0

 

With the exception of the Tripe and perhaps the Pup, these measured top speeds, while a little too fast, aren't too far off the mark, IMO. I don't have WOFF, so I have to hope OBD tamed the Tripe somewhat--it also had the fastest measured dive speed in OFF--273 mph!!--so I hope that still isn't the case in WOFF.

Herr,

Your OFF numbers look pretty good and are close to what I'm adjusting the top speeds to in my installation of WOFF.  Like Gav said, in testing them I found the sea level speed to be almost exactly what is listed as the top speed in the XFM file.  I'm guessing the Tripe is a typo that was carried over from OFF as I found it's top speed listed at 121.5 mph in the XFM file and it tested at 121 mph sea level.  This is way fast, faster than the WOFF Camel speed of 118.5 mph so I'm guessing they meant it to be 112.5 mph as the Sopwith Tripe should be slower than the Camel.

Bottomline, after adjusting the Entente rotaries downward the WOFF Albatros speeds fall in nicely between the Entente rotaries and the Spad/SE5 (a bit faster than most of the rotary engine Entente planes but less maneuverable, and slower than the Spad/SE5 but a bit more maneuverable) which is what I have always read.  So I'm getting great dogfights in the Albatros against the Entente rotary planes now in addition to the already great fights with the Spad and SE5. 

Personally, the only WWI sim I found whose flight models were probably close to accurate was Richtofen's Skies. It was hard as Hell to fly any of the rotary-powered aircraft without constant input and close attention, with takeoffs and landings being damned near impossible. Which is why I saw many, many people log on, enter the server, and then leave after complaining about not being able to get into the air, likely never to return. Everything else has been far too easy.

I agree this is probably very true in many flight sims.  I am a pilot and I'm always looking for the most realistic (which can also read: most difficult) FM possible in a fight sim which may not be reasonable for the general audience.  The first time I flew a tail dragger (even after practicing while taxiiing) I went down the runway like a drunk on my first takeoff.  It was quite humbling and probably not something all players would enjoy.  But at the same time I appreciate the opportunity for more realistic/challenging alternative FM's when they are available.

Gav,

Finally got the chance to fly your N17 FM last night and I like it.  I didn't look at the changes you made but the little N17 feels more lively overall.  It doesn't feel as heavy in the turns in particular and seems to come around more quickly IMO. 

I've only flown it one sortie but I have a campaign going in the N17 right now so will be spending more time in it in the near future.

Good job from what I can tell so far!

Thanks for these numbers, Gav.

Have you come up with any more for the rotaries?  I've always read that the Camel could catch the Dr1 pretty handily in a sprint so a 9mph difference looks pretty good to try out (I've got the Dr1 at 103).  I've got my Nieuport 11 at 97 mph so that ties in pretty well with your 102.5 on the Nieuport 17.  I'm going to put the N16 at 100 or 101 as I think it had the same engine as the N17 but with the top mount Lewis which would add a little more drag.

Cheers!

Hi Robert,

You have to be logged in to download from the "Downloads" section...maybe you weren't logged in?  I got the same error message until I logged in.

I haven't put pencil to paper on all the rotaries yet, Herr.  That's why I was curious to see what Gav's numbers were as I figured he had already been through this exercise.  I thought it might be fun to slow them down to some of the published numbers I found to see how it impacted gameplay.

Now, for horse power, changing it doNow, having argued myself silly at the Rise of Flight forums over the Albatros airspeed, it is great that I can finally tinker with the FM in a WW1 flight sim. However, WOFF is not free of the same problems. Just like Rise of Flight, the Entente rotary scouts are pretty fast. 118.5mph for the Camel, 110mph for the Nieuport 17, 116mph for the Nieuport 24, etc. As Pat Wilson says, FMs will never be perfect, but they shouldn't be obviously wrong. The idea is to make the relative performance of the aircraft credible. So, one of the first things I did was to slow down the rotary scouts (including the Dr1, ahem). For example, all of the more detailed sources have a max airspeed of about 107mph for the Nieuport 24, but there is one figure out there that says 116mph and WOFF went with that one. That ends of skewing the whole balance in 1917 when your Albatros is slower than 116mph.

Gav,

I had already started to slow the rotaries down on a one off basis as I could find the data. Right now I've got the DR1 at 103, Nieuport 23 at 105, and just updated the N24 to 107 (which makes sense in relation to the N23).

But I would love to see your complete list on your adjusted rotary speeds. It would be very helpful.

Thanks!

In the end it is up to each of us who bought and fly WOFF to try and decide what mods we want or do not want to use (as long as we don't complaint to the devs of the vanilla game). I still think it is interesting that people are proposing some.

 

When until recently I flew OFF (which is still on the HD) it was with mods including HPW's FM and EW mod, HPW Ultimate Damage Mod and 33 Lima Arc mod, Bletchley's AA and Buddy1998 missions, Andy's sounds and HPW Weather.

 

My Rise of Flight install also uses many mods which make it a much better experience (in my personal view) than the original !

Well said, Corsaire.

The intent of this thread was not to generate proposals for OBD to change their FM's.  Hopefully they are off working on new Add-on modules instead 

The intent of this thread was to fiddle around with the FM's and get them the way each of us wants them, share and compare notes and hopefully have fun for those who are interested.

As long as the AI is not dropping out of the sky or has become sitting ducks I'm less concerned with subtle changes to their behavior than the "feel" and performance of my aircraft.  And as that is subjective on my part I have no interest in proposing changes that affect other players.  It is entirely voluntary to use these FM's and if you don't like them you can just back them out with one simple click in JSGME.

I for one like Gav's FM changes for the Alb D.Va and plan on continuing to use it...but to each his own as it should be   No peer pressure here either way!  And I'm looking forward to trying his other FM changes also.  It's fun to experiment with different ideas which can easily be reversed if you dont like them.

Well, I get to stay!

Just got a note back from CombatAce and they have adjusted my account to allow my son and I to both participate.

I've told Gav this already, but just for the record I really like his Alb D.Va FM.  I hope he'll share more FM's with us!

Guys, I'm sorry again...

I explored the files I uploaded (with gavagai's Mod) and the file structure was not correct to be used via JSGME.

I'm afraid neither Bucksnort's (Hellshade's D.V FM) is.

There is folder missing (OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields)...so JSGME is not installing the FMs in the right place.

Meaning I was having a placebo effect all night yesterday, trying to test, at last, gavagai's FM...

I have also updated my original post... 

Hey Guys,

I was finally able to log back into CombatAce, but it may be temporary.  My son already has an account here and when I also created one it let me in long enough for my first post but then blocked me as they don't allow two accounts from one IP address.  So they put a fix in temporarily but I may not be able to stay. 

Just wanted to say quickly that the JSGME that I posted is for a JSGME executable and Mods folder installed in the "OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields" folder where the WOFF/CFS3 executables, Ankors Shaders Mod, etc are also located.  If you've got JSGME installed at the root directory of WOFF then it won't work.  It sounds like Hellshade already has that path covered in his post, but Hellshade's won't work if your JSGME/Mods install is with the game executables. 

That could also be the difference between Adger's and RJW's tests.  The folder structure will depend on how you installed JSGME and the location of your MODS folder.

Cheers!  (this may be my last post)

B.

In an effort to keep the peace on the official WOFF forum and still be able to talk about alternative flight models and share ideas I thought I would have a go at starting a WOFF FM thread here in neurtal territory on CombatAce. 

FM arguments are never resolved, so the intent of this thread is to fiddle around with the FM's and get them the way each of us wants them, share and compare notes and hopefully have fun 

So here is the first effort.  This is an Albatros D.V FM created by Hellshade with data from Elephant and Jim F. Miller.  It makes only two changes to the WOFF Albatros D.V flight model.  It reduces the weight from 680 kg to 620 kg and the horsepower from 180 to 170.  According to JFM at least 742 of the 900 Albatros D.V's were built at this weight and horsepower.

The one change to Hellshade's original file that I made was to pair it down to just the .xfm files and make it JSGME ready.  Simply download this file and install it using JSGME from your Mods folder under the OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields folder.  If you don't like the FM, then simply uninstall it using JSGME and you're back to the stock WOFF FM.

Bucksnort

Alb DV 620kg 170hp.zip